


if you promise to stay conscious, i will try and do the same

by jublis



Series: enough light to drown in [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Recreational Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, John Johnson the Metaphysical Goalie, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Pining, Timeline What Timeline, bitty and lardo are ride or die, bitty: one time lardo threatened me with a spoon and i knew we were gonna be best friends, jack doesn't even say anything in this but we love him, lardo doesn't know how to talk about her feelings, ransom says acab, sleep deprived lardo sounds like sleep deprived adora, so she stole shitty's car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25112989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: She smiles, all sharp edges and teeth, and Bitty falls a little bit in love. “You and I,” she announces, “are going to get ice cream together.”Lardo gets up, determined, and marches to the hallway, leaving Bitty dumbfounded at the kitchen table. A few moments later she walks back, jacket over her stained t-shirt and pajama pants, and raises an eyebrow at him. “Bittle,” she says. “Are you going to keep me waiting for our first date?”Bitty scrambles up, socks sliding on the floor. “It’s three in the morning,” he says. “I doubt anything is even open.”“It’s a college town,” Lardo says, unimpressed, twirling the Haus keys in her index finger. “Get a coat and get moving. We’ll find something.”Bitty looks down at his clothes—his tye dye t-shirt, his flannel blue pants—and shakes his head. “I should probably get dressed. I look too…”, he stops himself at Lardo’s look. “I look too obvious.”“Is it bothering you or is it going to bother other people?” Lardo asks. When Bitty doesn’t answer, she nods. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”That’s how it starts.Or, three times Bitty and Lardo go on impromptu midnight field trips, and one time everyone else joins in.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle & Larissa "Lardo" Duan, Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: enough light to drown in [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818844
Comments: 15
Kudos: 132





	if you promise to stay conscious, i will try and do the same

**Author's Note:**

> HI I'M BACK
> 
> so. so. so. bitty & lardo is the friendship we NEED in our lives. so i took one for the team. i hope y'all like it!!
> 
> title is from "lua," by bright eyes.
> 
> see y'all at the end notes!

i. 

  


It’s been nearly eight months, and Bitty still hasn’t gotten used to all the Haus noises. 

  


Considering he doesn’t technically live there yet—bless his actual dorm room, all the way across the campus, and he is _not_ deliberately staying here later so he has an excuse to crash in somebody’s room, of course he isn’t—, that’s only to be expected. He’s heard stories about the Haus ghosts, but he’s not sure how much he believes in them; all in all, the place just sounds like an old, slightly moldy house inhabited by a bunch of pseudo-frat guys. Which is, you know. _Loud_.

  


Bitty cringes at the creak of the floorboard beneath his feet. He’s trying to get from Johnson’s room (Johnson isn’t even there; he gave some excuse about needing to run some errands for the sake of the plot) to the kitchen, but the task has been proven incredibly difficult by the way the goddamn floor is yelling at him every time he takes a step. There’s an inherent feeling of guilt at being out of bed at this hour, because his mother was very particular about bedtime and curfew, but Bitty swallows it down. He’s nearly nineteen, for God’s sake. He’s a college student. He’s allowed to be awake at three in the morning.

  


He balances himself on the banner of the stairs, trying to keep too much weight off his walk. Years of figure skating made him light on his feet, but the Haus doesn’t seem to care.

  


Except for him, the place is eerily quiet. He supposes it is a Thursday, and what sort of wild shit can people be getting up to on a Thursday, but it makes Bitty feel like the first character to die in a horror movie. He can’t even hear Ransom and Holster bickering from the attic. In all the time he’s known these people, he’s never seen them actually respect the boundaries of time.

  


Which is why he shouldn’t have startled so badly when he walked into the kitchen to see Lardo, rummaging through the so-called fridge. 

  


Bitty must’ve made some sort of sound, because Lardo whips around to look at him like he’s just let out a scream. They blink at each other for a few long seconds.

  


“Are you—”, Bitty says, voice cracking. “Are you threatening me with a spoon?”

  


Lardo looks down at her hand, seemingly surprised to see that she is, indeed, pointing a spoon at him like it’s some sort of weapon. She drops her arm, and a blush creeps up her neck, though her expression is neutral. “Sorry about that,” she says. “You. Caught me off guard.”

  


“No, no, I’m sorry,” Bitty rushes to say, running a hand through his hand. “I didn’t think anyone would be awake right now. I would’ve been louder if I knew.”

  


Lardo nods. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let me stop you.” She turns back to the fridge, and Bitty hesitates for a moment before moving towards the pantry—or what he’s made as a pantry, because oh my God, these people didn’t even _have_ one before he arrived. 

  


He has one arm full of flour and another reaching for the brown sugar, when Lardo turns around and levels him with such an intense stare he almost drops everything.

  


“You,” she says. “You’re the baking guy, aren’t you?”

  


Bitty would laugh, if she didn’t look so intimidating. Lardo only got back from her semester abroad a couple months ago, and she’s a really busy person, so Bitty hasn’t gotten around to having a full conversation with her yet. Figures that the only thing she knows about him is that he _bakes_.

  


“Apparently,” he answers, going for an easy smile. He places the ingredients on the counter and leans back, crossing his arms in front of his (oh goodness, he’s wearing that weird pink and purple stained t-shirt, what is Lardo going to think of him _now_?) chest. 

  


Lardo closes the fridge door and takes one step towards him. For some reason, Bitty wants to take a step back.

  


She twirls the spoon between her fingers. “Do you know how to make ice cream?”

  


Bitty blinks. “Ice cream,” he repeats.

  


Lardo nods, expression completely serious. “Ice cream.” She rubs her hand against her forehead, like she’s fighting off a headache. 

  


“I don’t know?” Bitty says, tilting his head. “I mean, I’ve never _tried_. I’m sure I can look up a recipe or another, but I can’t promise it’ll be good.”

  


Lardo looks so sad at his words that Bitty nearly retracts them and tries to come up with a lie. She sits down at the kitchen table and deflates, face down against the surface. She’s so small she can completely curl up on the chair, so her feet don’t touch the ground. Bitty has the urge to wrap her around in a hug, but he’s ninety percent sure she’d stab him with a spoon and make it work. 

  


He isn’t heartless. It takes him about two seconds to walk over and sit next to her, leaning a little closer to make his presence known. “Hey, Lardo,” he says, quietly. “Are you okay?”

  


She giggles a little, turning her face around so she can look at him with one eye open. “My body is betraying me,” she whines, almost uncharacteristically. “I think I’ve slept maybe five hours in the past week and I have this major presentation due tomorrow and I can’t sleep because of all the energy drinks I had earlier and now I really, really want ice cream and there isn’t any.”

  


“Oh,” Bitty says, dumbfounded. “That’s—I’m sorry?”

  


Lardo lifts her head, leaning it against her hands. “Not your fault, dude,” she says. “You sound like Jack. Canadian politeness meets Southern hospitality. Have you two apologized each other to death yet?”

  


“I take offense to that,” Bitty answers, but he doesn’t, really. 

  


Lardo snorts. “You would,” she says, amused, and Bitty feels like they’re not strangers after all. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I should probably try and sleep now.” Then she squints at him, as if she’s just realized something. “Wait. Two questions. Why are _you_ awake, and don’t you, like, _not_ live here?”

  


Bitty looks away, and he can feel himself turning red. “Uh. About that.” He scratches his neck. “Well, you know, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I might as well get busy and make something.”

  


“And the reason you look as guilty as if you’d killed someone?” Lardo asks, unfazed.

  


“It’s nothing,” he says, quickly. “It’s just, I’m kind of avoiding my dorm? My, uh—my roommate and I aren’t on the best of terms right now. Or _ever_. He’s—you know.” Bitty smiles at Lardo, a little sadly. “He doesn’t like me all that much, for obvious reasons.” He gives a little wave, gesturing at himself.

  


Lardo blinks at him. There’s a smudge next to her eyes that can either be eyeliner or ink. “That’s bullshit,” she says. “You know he’s a dick, right? You know that he’s a homophobic dick and that’s his fucking fault, not yours?”

  


“I know,” Bitty says, quietly. “It’s hard to remember sometimes, but. I know.”

  


With a suddenness that definitely doesn’t make him jump, Lardo grabs his wrist. There’s a glint in her eyes that he hasn’t seen before, but seems oddly fitting. She smiles, all sharp edges and teeth, and Bitty falls a little bit in love. “You and I,” she announces, “are going to get ice cream together.”

  


Lardo gets up, determined, and marches to the hallway, leaving Bitty dumbfounded at the kitchen table. A few moments later she walks back, jacket over her stained t-shirt and pajama pants, and raises an eyebrow at him. “Bittle,” she says. “Are you going to keep me waiting for our first date?”

  


Bitty scrambles up, socks sliding on the floor. “It’s three in the morning,” he says. “I doubt anything is even open.”

  


“It’s a college town,” Lardo says, unimpressed, twirling the Haus keys in her index finger. “Get a coat and get moving. We’ll find something.”

  


Bitty looks down at his clothes—his tye dye t-shirt, his flannel blue pants—and shakes his head. “I should probably get dressed. I look too…”, he stops himself at Lardo’s look. “I look too _obvious_.”

  


“Is it bothering you or is it gonna bother other people?” Lardo asks. When Bitty doesn’t answer, she nods. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

  


That’s how it starts.

  
  
  


**ii.**

  


It isn’t unusual for Lardo to call Bitty in the middle of the night, but why she would be doing it on a Wednesday in the middle of Winter break is truly beyond him. 

  


He knows she’s home for the week, even though he isn’t. Bitty had promised his parents before he left for Samwell that he would spend Christmas with them every year, but it was only a matter of time before something came up. That something being a hopeless crush that had Bitty volunteering to stay at the Haus for break, because Jack had looked so _sad_ at the prospect of staying alone, and Bitty was opening his mouth before he even thought it through. Since Jack is Jewish, spending Christmas with his parents isn’t really a priority for him, but apparently his mother had been invited for a New Year’s fundraiser party, the sort Jack hated, and he just elected to stay behind. 

  


(The way his face lit up when Bitty said he’d be staying too, to get ahead on some classwork, was worth a thousand suns.)

  


It’s been a fun few days, if nearly unbearable from Bitty’s part. He and Jack are good friends now, really good friends, and even silence is comfortable between them now. Bitty can hardly believe he used to hate _Jack_ , and think Jack hated _him_. Turns out, they get along pretty well.

  


But Jack is, first and foremost, an old man at heart. Which means he clocked out hours ago, and Bitty’s just been on a YouTube rabbit hole for the past four hours, watching Avatar: The Last Airbender compilations (he had a thing for Sokka when he was younger, fucking sue him). And then his phone starts buzzing, Lardo’s criss crossed eyes lighting up his screen with an incoming call. 

  


He picks up on the second ring. “Hey, girl. What’s happenin’?”

  


The line is silent for one, two seconds, and Bitty’s heart sinks. When Lardo’s voice comes, it’s a tiny, trembling thing. “Hi, Bitty,” she says, sounding miserable. “Are you busy?” Before he can answer, she corrects herself. “I mean, you better not be busy. I’m picking you up in five minutes. Be outside so I don’t have to make too much noise.”

  


“Uh, sure,” Bitty says, throwing his legs off the bed. “I though you were in Boston? Weren’t you supposed to be hanging out with Shitty today?”

  


Lardo laughs. “Yeah, we hung out alright,” she says. “See you soon. Five minutes.”

  


She hangs up, and Bitty is left with the feeling that something is very, very wrong. 

  


He and Jack are friends, but Lardo is his _person_. Ever since that fateful night when he was a Frog, they’ve been pretty much attached at the hip, going out for lunch together every week and occasionally going on midnight field trips. Besides Shitty, she was the next person he told about, well, everything. She already knew he was gay, but Bitty told her about it all— growing up in the South, how he still isn’t out to his parents, about figure skating and hockey and boys. In turn, Lardo told him about _her_ all, too; being a first generation American, her Filipino heritage, the way her parents wanted her to be a doctor but the only thing she wanted to do was art. 

  


Lardo isn’t the most emotional person out there by any stretch; she’s even an energetic drunk, whereas Bitty is an absolute wreck by his fifth drink. And though she shares, it’s always practical, methodical. He’s only seen her cry twice, and both times were due to finals stress. This does not sound like a stress sort of crying.

  


Bitty’s in mom mode. As he passes by the kitchen on his way out, he absently thinks if there’s anything he can grab for Lardo, but no—he’s pretty sure Chowder and Nursey destroyed the remnants of his apple tarts, so that’s hopeless. He shudders in the night air. What can you do.

  


Lardo’s already parked her car when Bitty closes the door behind him. He beams at her, and she gives a tired smile in response. Her hair is longer now, starting to grow unevenly on one side. She’s wearing a mishmash of clothes that makes her look like she could be in three separate occasions at once: sweatpants, a blazer, and sneakers. Bitty himself doesn’t look any better, with this god-awful orange t-shirt he got from his Moomaw and yellow striped flannel pants, under an olive jacket. Fashion is for a given few.

  


“Hey, honey,” Bitty says, closing the door of the passenger seat. “Are you gonna tell me what we’re doing? This is a safe space.”

  


“We,” Lardo says, turning on the ignition, “are going somewhere I can find the greasiest, unhealthiest food in the planet, and then I’ll probably tell you about the absolute _shitshow_ of a night I’ve been having. Or not.”

  


“Sure, sure,” Bitty says. “Did you drive all the way from Boston?” Then, on further inspection, “Is this Shitty’s car?”

  


Lardo isn’t looking at him, but Bitty has the distinct impression she’s about to bite his head off. “Don't worry about it,” she says, sweetly, and Bitty shuts up.

  


The 24-hour diner they end up in is the definition of trashy, and exactly what Lardo seemed to be looking for. If Johnson was still here, he’d say something about how it was only there for plot points. Their ex-goalie was a weird dude.

  


Bitty shifts on the cold fake leather of the booth, fingers tapping against the table. He’s awfully good at small talk, thank you very much, but despite what Jack thinks, he does have a sense self-preservation, and he knows when it’s better to be quiet. Up front, Lardo looks like an absolute mess; her makeup is smudged, and her lips are downturned, and even the waitress seems eager to leave when she takes their orders. Bitty bites his tongue, and doesn’t say a word. His maternal instincts aside, he’s here for emotional support and emotional support only. Judgement free zone. Lardo will talk when she’s ready.

  


Twenty minutes and two orders of french fries later, Lardo seems to have finally calmed down. She stabs a piece of bacon with her fork and chews it for half a second before speaking up.

  


“Sorry for calling you out of nowhere,” she says, quietly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. Sorry for being rude. And such a mess.”

  


“Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Bitty says, earnestly. He reaches out and takes the hand that isn’t busy maiming her food. “I’m your friend. You know you can call me whenever. Besides, you think _this_ is a mess? You got embarrassing midnight calls about me out the _wazoo_. Remember when I asked you to rescue me from Winter Screw Date guy? I hid inside a convenience store for twenty-five minutes, drunk like Lord-knows-what.”

  


Lardo smiles a little at the memory. “You tried to waltz with me in the middle of the street,” she says, wistfully. “I twirled you around once and you threw up.”

  


“ _Exactly_ ,” Bitty nods. “So you know I’m ride or die. I won’t think any less of you for whatever’s botherin’ you.”

  


“It’s just—Shitty,” Lardo says, voice catching. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she stabs a fry with more force than necessary. “He loves me.”

  


Bitty blinks. “Uh,” he says. “I'm not sure what sort of emotional support I should be offering right now?”

  


Lardo snorts, but it sounds more like a sob. “Do your worst,” she says, gesturing vaguely.

  


“You see, my usual answer would be, _oh my God, that’s great!_ But you’re crying, so that’s not it,” Bitty says, counting on his fingers. “I could be a dick and go _oh, literally everyone knows that already_ , but I’m a gentleman, so I won’t.” He squints at her. “I’m getting the sense that maybe my response should be an emphatic, _oh, honey?_ ”

  


Lardo breaks out in nervous giggling, and the sound is so unlike her that Bitty can only stare as she tries to get her laughter under control. “God, Bitty,” she says, breathless. “What the _fuck_ am I going to do now?”

  


“I’m not sure what you mean,” Bitty says. “He loves you.”

  


“Yeah,” she says, rubbing her hand against her eye. “And he made this whole—he invited me to hang out, we got stoned, then he took me out for dinner, the whole fucking thing. And then he’s talking about how I’m the most important person in his life, and how he knows this is weird because we’re not even dating, but he wants me to know. He loves me.” Lardo takes a deep breath, the words spilling out from her faster and faster. “And I panicked and gave this half-assed excuse about how I promised I’d call you tonight, and it was getting late, and I ran away and kind of stole his car and now we’re here.”

  


Bitty raises his eyebrow. “You stole his car?”

  


Lardo groans, hiding her face with her hands. “ _That’s_ what you’re focusing on?”

  


“Sorry,” he says, schooling his face into a neutral expression. Then, as gently as he can, he asks, “If you hadn’t panicked. If you’d stayed there. What would you have told him?”

  


Lardo peeks at him from between her fingers, face red, and eyes suspiciously shining. “Don’t make me say it, Bitty. You know.”

  


“I know,” he agrees. “I’m your best friend, and I know. But Shitty is your goddamn soulmate, honey. You think he doesn’t already?” She doesn’t answer. Bitty leans forward, prying her hands off her face and holding them. “You’re not good with words,” he says. “You show what you feel through paintings, through actions. But Shitty’s love is in what he says, besides what he does. So he wanted to tell you.”

  


Lardo sighs, bowing her head. “I knew,” she whispers. “He said he wanted me to know, but I already knew. I just didn’t—I never—,” she pauses. “I didn’t want anything to change. I didn’t want to ruin it by saying it out loud.”

  


“Nothing’s ruined,” Bitty says. “He’s too far gone for you. There’s nothing to worry about. Though,” he adds, “you probably owe him a call. And an explanation.”

  


“Yeah, no kidding,” Lardo mutters. “I can’t believe I did this.”

  


“You’re only human,” Bitty says, grinning. He gingerly takes a bite of his pancake, that sat nearly forgotten in front of him. "We all do stupid shit sometimes.”

  


Lardo raises an eyebrow at him, her usual mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Like volunteering to stay with the guy you’re head over heels for, _alone_ , for two whole weeks?”

  


Bitty chokes on his pancake, protest stuck in his throat, and Lardo cackles, loudly. He figures it’s worth it.

  
  


**iii.**

  


Bitty never knew the Haus could feel so empty. 

  


He’s exaggerating. Ransom and Holster are still up on the attic, Ollie and Wicks still have the second floor double, Lardo’s still in her room down the hall, and Chowder, with Jack’s dibs, is just across from Bitty. With the arrival of the new Tadpoles—Whiskey and Tango, coupled with Nursey and Dex who pretty much live at the Haus, already—it’s hard to catch a minute in lonesome. 

  


Still. That’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? Jack’s dibs. Which means, Jack’s gone.

  


He isn’t _gone_ gone. Of course he isn’t. In fact, Bitty’s talking to him all the time; between breaks in practice, and in the evenings after class, and they’ve started skyping every Sunday afternoon. They’re together. Which is why Bitty isn’t sure why Jack and Shitty graduating hit him like an oncoming train. 

  


(He thinks he made it all up.

  


Jack kissed him. Jack kissed him. Bitty watched Jack leave, lips still slightly parted, words echoing in his head. _I gotta go, but I’ll text you, okay? I’ll text you._

  


It sounded too good. Bitty fell down on the chair behind him, hands clutching at his chest, heart racing on his fingertips. _Was that me?,_ he thought. _Was that him?_

  


Then his mind had dissolved into nonsensical rambling and the lingering notes of a show tune. Summer was—well. It was the best. Jack came down to Madison, to the absolute delight of Bitty’s parents, and they spent as much time as they could together before the Fall semester started for Bitty, and Jack had to leave for Providence.

  


_Oh my God_ , he’d thought, on the way to Georgia. _My boyfriend is meeting my parents._

  


Then he remembered.)

  


Bitty hasn’t told anyone yet. It’s the agreement he and Jack made, for the sake of Jack’s career, and it hasn’t taken a toll on him at all. Sure, he sometimes would like to slip in the words into conversation, wants to tell a funny anecdote that wouldn’t make sense without context, would like to know how the word boyfriend feels in his tongue when it’s real. But it’s not a big deal. He never could before, so this doesn’t make much of a difference.

  


Except it really, really does.

  


He’s used to feeling like a liar. The shame isn’t new. But he thought here, at least, he wouldn’t have to live with it.

  


So it’s four in the morning and Bitty is staring intently at the wall of his room, trying to decide if he should try and bake something to calm himself down. _Pros_ , he thinks, _maybe I’ll tire myself out and be able to sleep afterwards. Cons, I think Dex is passed out in the living room and I don’t want to wake him up._

  


“Maybe peach cobbler?” he mutters to himself, frowning. “If I wake him up with peach cobbler, maybe he won’t be as mad.”

  


There’s a rapping at the door. Bitty jumps, smoothing down his hair and trying to pretend like he wasn’t having a conversation about baked good with thin air. “Come in,” he says, brightly but quiet.

  


The door opens to reveal Lardo, still dressed up from the day, with mismatched socks and streaks of charcoal on her cheek. “Now,” she says, before he can open his mouth, “what the fuck are you doing up at this ungodly hour?”

  


“Excuse me,” Bitty says. “But _you’re_ the one who walked into my room. Check-mate, Picasso.”

  


Lardo points the charcoal at him. “Say the name Picasso in reference to me again and I’ll shove this down your throat.” She leans against the banister, crossing her arms. Bitty only cringes a little at the way her pencil smudges her otherwise white t-shirt. “So, night owl,” she says. “Want some company?”

  


Bitty shrugs. “I was thinking about going down to the kitchen, actually. Might as well be productive.”

  


“Damn, bro,” Lardo says, scrunching up her nose. “I put the Tadpoles on grocery duty tomorrow. We’re all out on—well. Everything.”

  


“Oh,” Bitty deflates. He tries not to look too upset about it, because Lardo is scarily good at knowing when he’s baking for baking’s sake, or when he’s doing it to distract himself. As he already imagined, it doesn’t work. 

  


Lardo frowns at him, coming inside. She closes the door behind her and flops down on the floor in front of him, setting her drawing materials aside. “Bitty,” she says. “What’s up?”

  


“Nothing,” he’s quick to say. “Really. I’m just stressed.”

  


She quirks an eyebrow. “It’s the second week of the term.”

  


“Time is meaningless,” Bitty says. “Also, I don’t control my feelings.”

  


It isn’t technically a lie, but Bitty feels stained with it. Lardo stares him up and down, multiple times, and he can see the exact moment where she decides that no, she doesn’t believe him, but yes, she’ll let it pass this once. “Sure,” she says. She heaves herself up, stretching her back with an impressive crack. “So. Want to run some errands with me?”

  


“What?”

  


“You’re not going to tell me what’s wrong,” Lardo says. “So baking your emotions out is the next best option. I’m not going to let you sulk in here. Put some shoes on. We’re going shopping.”

  


She throws a pair of beat-up sneakers in his face, and Bitty catches it with a sigh. “That reference was _almost_ perfect.”

  


“Don’t test your luck,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Let’s go.”

  


They fall into a comfortable silence as they walk towards the nearest 24-hour Walmart. The streets are mostly deserted, but from the occasional drunken partygoer, and if Bitty focuses on the rhythm of his steps and on Lardo’s breathing beside him, he can almost forget the wild drumming of his heart. 

  


He sees himself doing it. He tastes the words on his tongue, sees the face she’ll make, imagines himself just opening his mouth and saying it. _By the way, Jack and I are a thing now. I wanted you to be the first to know._

  


Bitty wants to tell her more than _anything_. 

  


Which is exactly why he doesn’t. He thinks about Jack’s lips and Jack’s hands and Jack’s smile, about all the things he thought he’d never get the chance to. It hurts to keep him a secret, but Bitty can’t betray Jack’s trust like this. Though the words taste sweet, they’re too heavy for even this steady night to shoulder. So Bitty keeps a stream of small talk with Lardo, laughing at all the right moments, saying all the right things, linking his arms with her as they walk into the store. He pushes her around in the shopping cart, cackling at the way she keeps saying _gotta go fast, gotta go fast,_ progressively louder as they zoom down the aisle of the ingredients Bitty needs. She tells him about the new lecturer in her Art History II class that she fucking hates, and spends about ten minutes naming all the things she would say to him if she could.

  


It’s a good night. In the end, when they finally make it back to the Haus, Bitty does feel lighter. They sit together in the kitchen while the peach cobbler bakes, resigned to the fact that they probably won’t sleep at all, and listen to the soft music coming from Lardo’s phone. When it’s done, half the house is already up with the smell, and Dex (who had, in fact, been passed out in the living room) comes in to call dibs on the first slice.

  


Bitty makes it back to his room after sunrise. He’d left his phone behind, plugged in, and when he unlocks it, there’s a text from Jack. _Thinking of you, it says. It’s like I can’t stop._

  


He smiles.

  
**+**

  


(The next time he and Lardo go out on an actual midnight field trip, it’s the day before Bitty’s graduation, and everyone decides to join in.

  


“Seriously,” Bitty says, sitting down on the passenger seat. "Y’all are gonna get us arrested.”

  


Because Lardo is driving, but it seems like everyone he knows is squished into the backseat; Ransom and Holster are pressed up against opposite windows, with Jack in the middle, and Shitty is sitting on Jack’s lap and looking way too delighted about it. “Tonight is the _night_ ,” he says, loudly. “Our child is practically a college graduate. If the cops try to stop us, we’ll stop the cops.”

  


“We’ll punch ‘em,” Ransom says, deadpan. “Just. Punch them. Don’t even need a reason. I’d punch a cop just because.”

  


“Fuck cops!” Holster screams, and Bitty’s ears ring. 

  


“Calm the _fuck_ down,” Lardo says, turning on the radio. “Bitty, it’s your day. Where are we going?”

  


Bitty looks around at his friends—at Jack, the love of his life; at Lardo, the person he trusts most in the world; at Ransom, Holster, and Shitty, with whom he can’t even picture his life without. He smiles at Lardo. “It doesn’t really matter,” he says. “Let’s just drive around for a while. Y’all being here is enough for me.”

  


Under the sound of Ransom and Holster’s teasing, Bitty doesn’t even notice it. He doesn’t see the way Shitty turns to look at Jack, a knowing smirk on his face. He doesn’t see the way Jack blushes bright red, looking at Bitty like he’s looking at the Sun. 

  


He doesn’t see. But he already knows.)

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii :D so. that was fun! this is my second work in this fandom ever, so please be gentle! also featuring how many atla references i can fit in unrelated works. (go read my atla fics!!)
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated. if you want to yell at me, you can do that on twitter @bornfrombeauty.


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